The Bionic Wiki:Current events
Current Events is a centralized spot on the wiki where the community can discuss topics that concern the whole of the wiki. Think of it as a talk page for the entire database. If you want to open up discussion about a particular article, please do so on the Talk: page for that article. Don't forget to indent and sign your posts (with ~~~~) to make discussion easier to navigate. Goodbye Debrief, Hello Acts I know Joe hates them and since it doesn't appear likely that's we'll be incorporating other stylized headers anytime soon, I suggest we drop the Debriefs and return to the traditional Summary. In addition, I'd also like to break the summaries into Acts. Acts are usually defined by the commercial breaks and there are about five or six acts in an episode. Some Bionic episodes have teasers -- like prologues, the part of the story that takes place before the main titles. Most all Bionic episodes have epilogues -- a sort of conclusion after the resolution of the story. Until I get my hands on a script for each show (anyone want to scan your scripts!??) I won't know for certain if the words teaser or epilogue are used. I love act-writing because it allows you to focus on one section of the story at a time. You can be as elaborate or as concise as you want; write one sentence, one paragraph, or go crazy -- as long as you stay within the confines of the act. The proposed format will match how it appears in the scripts (anyone!?) and may look something like this: :Teaser :OSI Agent Wayne Haley is captured. Jaime reluctantly agrees to pose as a lady wrestler in order to find him. :Act I :Jaime proves herself worthy in an audition match against Mad Mary. :Act II :Jaime takes the name "Savage Sommers" and prepares to wrestle in a warm-up match but her cover is blown when she appears in a televised wrestling promotion. :Act III :After being drugged and caged, Jaime manages to escape and convince Amazon April to reveal the location of the missing agent. But her rescue attempt fails and she, along with April are imprisoned with him. :Act IV :Jaime breaks out using a newly acquired wrestling move, but in order to save the day she must take on Mad Mary in the ring during a real match. :Act V :Alls well that ends well; April gets a reward for helping Jaime and Oscar gets a massage. Also, as with the Guest Stars subheaders, flanking each act header with four equal signs ( ) adds them to the table of contents in the proper format. — Paul (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC) :Hi Paul. I’ve never been comfortable with the header ‘Debrief’ and am more than happy to revert to ‘Summary’ which I think will make a lot more sense to everyone visiting The Bionic Wiki. I have to be honest though that I’m less than convinced about your suggestion to incorporate ‘Acts’ in the Summaries and can see problems arising here. For example: if you are watching an episode on video or ‘unofficial’ DVD copy (not a problem with offical Universal releases) where no division of Acts can be identified. Also are we certain that the commercial breaks are always placed at the beginning\end of the Acts? What do others think? Mark (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC) ::I agree with MarkW. Let's not go crazy here. I think separating each episode into ACTS is overkill. A simple SUMMARY is preferable. More importantly, as Mark said, the division into acts is not always identifiable on DVD. I would think very few people are going to pause their DVD and say, oh this is ACT 1, ACT2, etc. It's not necessary. ACTS are an artificial division, which I think detracts from a well-written summary. When you read summaries of other movies and TV shows, most reasonable people (I would think), want a detailed summary, not this artificial delineation of what happened every 10-15 minutes. The script may break it down by Act, but it did not appear onscreen that way for the Bionic Woman, nor SMDM. The only shows I can remember which flashed the word "ACTS and EPILOGUE" on screen are Barnaby Jones and perhaps The Streets of San Francisco - both Quinn Martin Productions. I vote for the a single Summary section. And no debriefs, it's too cold outside for that . — User:FuzzyLogic (talk) 04:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC) :::Excellent feedback guys! The most objective argument made against acts is, of course, the inability to accurately identify show breaks without the guidance of the commercial DVDs. And I don't want to limit anybody's participation based on the quality of their episodes. So the acts are out. Good work! I look forward to reading our summaries! — Paul (talk) 12:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC) :::::I agree that each episode should have a brief teaser summary followed by a longer indepth summary labeled with "SPOILER". Also I took the liberty of adding "Related Episodes" on some of the templates. --Agent X 03:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Affecting the Table of Contents I'm happy to see people formatting the Guest Stars subheadings! Keep in mind that they are not simply bolded with triple quotation marks ( ' ' ' ) but rather by four equal signs ( ). This bolds them and adds them to the table of contents in the proper format (I tried three equal signs but the type was still too big). — Paul (talk) :Thanks for this Paul. I'll adopt this format from now on. Mark (talk) 18:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Deletions If there are pages or pictures that need to be deleted, what is the procedure for ensuring that administrators know about it? (There are two Herb Jefferson, Jr. pages)Karen (talk) 10:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC) :Hi, Karen. You can get pages deleted by adding Category:Delete to the article -- I'll check the category periodically. You can also email me via the toolbox on my User page. — Paul (talk) 15:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC) Formates/Templates With more content being added to the character and actor pages, is there a specific format that should be followed? For the characters, I've seen different headings such as Played by, Career, Background, and Appearances. For the actor pages, some have character names listed (ex: Roger Perry) and others not listed (ex: Dee Timberlake) next to their appearance. Also, there has been mention of a collapsing/expanding template. I've tried looking for a template that works in a way that the reader could see a portion of text, then click to see the hidden text, and haven't found one. Does it exist? If so, what is it? Some quotes have been placed under the character pages. I think this is a nice elaboration on the character pages. Would some of the quotes on the episode page be better served on character pages?Karen (talk) 10:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC) :Karen, I've been mulling over the format of those character and actor pages also. I think some of the subject headers are really good (like 'background' and 'career') while others (like 'colleagues and friends' and 'fast facts') are extraneous. As fans, what pieces of information do we immediately want to see on character pages and actor pages? When I search for an actor, I want to know who he played, I want to know how many episodes he starred in and which ones? Was he a guest star? A special guest star? I want to see a recent picture and I want to know a little about him. Actor articles will not be very extensive. Conversely, in character articles, I want to know as much about him as possible. I want pictures, background, relations, trivia, quotes, etc. To this end, I have tweaked the format of four articles, Peggy Callahan, Jennifer Darling, John Saxon, and Fred Sloan. Observe that even though they are all in various stages of development, the format is in place and ready to accommodate contributions. :The only collapsible menu I know of is the table of contents. — Paul (talk) 18:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC) Thank You! I'd like to express my profound gratitude to all of you who are making this project a joy to work on. Enthusiasm is high and contributions have been consistent. Nearly 600 articles in just over four months is impressive. We are well on our way to becoming a significant Bionic information resource. To this end, I have some additional guidelines and notes on editing practices. I have separated them into their own topics to keep things orderly and to better facilitate responses. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Originality Under no circumstances should we be copying and pasting material from other sources. We are the authors of The Bionic Wiki. Everyone here has written great original material. We need to maintain that practice. If you like the way something is written on another site or in a book and want to use it here, try to capture the essence of the composition but put it into your own words and style. If you create an article but have nothing to add beyond a sentence or two -- that's OKAY! Remember, on a wiki it doesn't have to be complete all at once. One sentence is all you need to make an article LIVE. There's always someone else who will come in and add something new. It will be a long while before any article is ever truly complete. There is an exception to this standard, however: Wikipedia's license allows you to copy their text. I think this is a lazy practice, but I can't oppose it (I've already reverted content on the Severn Darden article that I had previously deleted). If you must use Wikipedia's articles, you need to reference the article with a link. You should also read this. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Chronology There is a big misconception with the timeline. Don't get me wrong, I certainly understand the desire to make things fit logically, but remember: we are not here to create the timeline; our job is to document it. Think of us as inter-dimensional time-travelers! We can observe the history of the Bionic universe, but we cannot change it. If we observe conflicting facts (like date discrepancies), we can alert the reader to the inconsistency by adding an editor's note (e.g. "this date contradicts an earlier date given in episode..."). We may also offer theories for possible resolutions ("perhaps the date is part of Jaime's cover..."). Speculation and conjecture is permitted, however, we must leave it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions. Under no circumstances should we be changing dates or altering images to correct presumed production errors. I have more notes, but I'll address them over on the Chronology page. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) :Perhaps altering images was going a bit too far on my behalf but I still feel compelled to fix the dates on the Chronology to make more sense despite the blunders of an idiotic production designer and/or writer. I asked many times in the talk section if Jaime's parents' death was established through dialogue or just the tombstone. I never got a confirmation so I push their death date back. If something is established through dialogue I will grudgenly accept it no matter how inconsistant it will be to the time line. --Agent X 06:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC) ::It doesn't matter if the date was established through dialogue or visuals, if it's in the episode then we must treat it as canon -- despite how we may feel personally. Integrity and accuracy is the foundation upon which any reputable information resource is built. This wiki is no different. Our first duty is to the facts as they are presented in the episodes. If one of those facts is ambiguous, then we acknowledge its ambiguity, we can offer reasonable suggestions to clarify it, but we don't change it. If there are conflicting facts from different episodes, we cite them, we can offer opinion as to which makes the most sense, but we don't choose one over the other. If the date of an event doesn't fit logically into our timeline, then we can suggest alternatives that do, but we cannot change the date. — Paul (talk) 08:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Credit Reflection I'd like to maintain a formal reflection of credits -- both in actor names and credit titles. Let's look at the Canyon of Death article as an example. We list Annette Cardona as Annette Charles/Cardona. While the actress may be known also as Charles, she is credited as Cardona in the Bionic Woman -- we must reflect that. We can elaborate on an actor's many names in their actor article. The obvious exception would be in the event of a spelling error -- as in Hermione Baddeley's case -- here we would use the correct spelling. Keep in mind that it is perfectly acceptable to create redirect pages for misspellings and aliases. In This Corner, Jaime Sommers is another example of good intentions that should be reserved for the characters' articles. In the BW credits, Marcia Shapiro is playing Mary Maddox but we have added "Mad" before her name. Also, Margaret Shocklee is playing Esther but we have given her the more appropriate, "The Spider Lady" Esther Chambers. I applaud your clarifications! But we should take our liberties to the character articles. Moreover, when MarkW created his Also Featuring credit back in March, I assumed it was for uncredited performers since all actors appearing in the opening/closing credits do indeed have titles (e.g. guest star(s), special guest star(s), co-starring, special appearance by, and with). But we're not using them consistently. Let's start doing so. Incidentally, uncredited actors should simply be listed as Uncredited. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Image Sanity Much like our beloved Link Sanity rule, can we agree upon a similar rule for images? With image capturing technology at out fingertips, screen captures are popping up all over the place (I even saw two images of Jack Ging, side-by-side, obviously the same scene--''almost the same shot!''--but one was of him on the phone and the other...er..was not). I think an episode has about four or five iconic images. We should strive for these. We could even vote on what images are the best representatives of a particular episode. Characters have perhaps 2 to 3 ideal images. And actors should be limited to one, ideally a recent headshot. Incidentally, I think the episode title card images are a nice visual aesthetic but ultimately superfluous. The article title does a fine job all on its own, no? The image just takes up a space that could be better served by a more iconic image. Also, Jim Sherrard, webmaster of the popular Bionic Woman Files, employs this visual convention in his own episode guides. Let's be different! — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) :First, let me say that I am an offender of the "link sanity rule", which I will need to revisit. Second, with the quantity of photos, I think that once more content is added to the page, the pictures will fit in more naturally, or at least can be decided upon. And maybe it's just that warm feeling it gives me, but I also think that the episode title card is a nice visual aesthetic. Hmmm... will be kind of sad to see it go. :I'd like to ask about the possible voting process. Is there a set procedure for voting on Wiki sites? How will it be determined what pictures are "iconic"?Karen (talk) 10:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC) ::Karen, my concern regarding images is not so much the quantity as it is the choices. More than one screen capture of similar content is not very interesting. Images should be varied, dynamic. With regard to voting, nominations can be made on the episode Talk page. As for the title card images, I'm sorry to see them go also, but where another fan resource is already using this convention, it hardly seems appropriate. — Paul (talk) 18:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC) :::OK, I fixed the Hanson page. This was one of the first pages I edited on the Bionic WIKI, and I was experimenting with the gallery feature. I guess I went a little overboard there, so I have since removed the extraneous Hanson image. ::::Karen, I agree. as more content is added to the page, the pictures help breakup the text and make it look more pleasing to the eye. ::::Paul, I ask that you reconsider the use of the title images, I think they give it a nice appearance. I was unaware of Jim's elegant site, and did not intend to duplicate the look there - not at all. While that site is nice, the images there are not quite varied enough. In each episode on that site, nearly every image is Lindsay Wagner. Granted she is beautiful, and the star of the show, but on our Bionic WIKI, I would like to see more varied images of other characters and scenes too, which is what I always considered before uploading pics from each episode. I have heard nothing but praise and positive feedback on my title images, so I'd like to continue uploading them. Finally, since the Bionic WIKI is so new, I think we should all focus on ADDING new content, including images, not removing it. — User:FuzzyLogic (talk) 04:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC) :::::Joe, I appreciate your position. As I explained above, I'm more concerned with the dynamic quality of the images rather than quantity. Do I really think episodes have only 4 or 5 distinctive image representations?--Yes. This is an objective view -- personally, I'd love to add a dozen images from each episode article -- but I refuse to allow this wiki to become a dumping ground for pictures simply because they're easy to add. You and Karen are right: as text information is added, it will balance out the images. But that's a lazy way to approach it. I'd rather be forced to add more images because we need to balance out the text. And I don't doubt that you have been praised for uploading the title images. It's a nifty idea. I entertained it myself while planning this project. Unfortunately a neighboring fansite is already using it. To copy the idea speaks to the integrity of our wiki. And that's something I will not budge on. — Paul (talk) 14:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Neutral Point of View We love these shows. We love some more than others. Some we hate. There are some people who actually believe A Bionic Christmas Carol is watchable! Or that sitting through Motorcycle Boogie is a fine way to pass the time! Not me. I think they're crap. But the only place you'll find my bias is in Talk pages, Current Events, and of course on my User Page. Bias has no business being anywhere else in this Bionic encyclopedia. If you find it, be sure to remove it. For help understanding what bias is and how to avoid it in your writing, check out Wikipedia's policy on it. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Format Quckies I assembled a few quick format issues: *Talk Pages - Most recent goes up top. *In the absence of a first name, titles may be used as part of character names. *Since episode titles are already highlighed by their link status, I don't much care for the otherwise appropriate quotation marks. But if we must use them, let's do so only when the titles appear in paragraphs. Let's drop the quotes in lists. *Please try to use the edit summary fields as much as possible. If your making a truly minor edit, you can mark it as minor. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Current Events Archives *March *February *January (a) *January